Embodiments of the inventive subject matter generally relate to the field of communications systems, and, more particularly, to managing contention groups for hidden nodes.
A network of communication stations can share a communication medium (e.g., wires connecting multiple stations or spectrum for transmitting radio signals among stations) using any of a variety of access techniques. Some access techniques (e.g., carrier sense multiple access (CSMA) techniques) include a contention period in which stations contend for use of the medium for transmitting a signal by sensing when the medium is idle. In CSMA techniques, “collisions” sometimes occur when signals from two or more stations overlap. Some CSMA techniques attempt to detect collisions and abort transmission to reduce the negative impact of collisions (e.g., CSMA/CD techniques). Other CSMA techniques include mechanisms to avoid or reduce the probability of collisions (e.g., CSMA/CA techniques). For example, different transmissions may be assigned one of multiple priorities. Access is granted using a Priority Resolution Period in which stations signal the priority at which they intend to transmit, and only the highest priority transmissions are allowed to continue in the contention process. A random backoff mechanism spreads the time over which stations attempt to transmit, thereby reducing the probability of collision.